Time Warner Cable to Auto-Credit For Sandy Outages

Time Warner Cable, one of the two big cable companies in the New York area, says it will automatically credit customers for outages caused by Superstorm Sandy.

Time Warner Cable Inc. says it will post credits to all customers in the hardest-hit parts of its service area.

Verizon Wireless is taking a similar approach, crediting customers in devastated areas for calls and text messages automatically.

Verizon Communications Inc., the local-phone company that owns Verizon Wireless, provides credits only to customers who call to report a Sandy-related outage. The other big New York-area cable company, Cablevision Systems Corp., has the same policy.

The companies issue the credits regardless of the reason for the outage -- in most cases, cable goes out because power does.

(Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press.  All Rights Reserved.)